Help finding great great grandparents named Alto

[badcrc]

I started researching using ancestry.com trying to find my great grandparents on my dad's side named Alto. I have very little information, and my living mother has a shockingly lacking amount of information about my dad's relatives. I quickly came to a dead end trying to bridge the gap from Finland to USA. My dad was Allen E. Alto and his parents were Ida E. Holland and Charles E. Alto. From what I found so far, Ida was born in Massachusetts in 1899 and Charles was born in Loimaa Finland either in 1886 or 1888 (not sure because the age/date written on census and draft cards is different at times). Charles came to USA in 1906 from one source I found. On his draft card he used the name Carl. One thing I found shows an Ida Holland with a mother Nygard that may or may not be correct.

I've searched quite a few online sources and I don't find any Alto with similar first names that match those dates in Finland. When I search for "finnish name alto" on google, one source says Alto is a respelling of Aalto, which made me think maybe they changed names from Aalto or Aaltonen or similar. Also I started thinking since Charles used Carl maybe they changed his name from Kaarl or Karl, but I don't find any matches that look right using those names either.

I'd like to know from more experienced people if it's worth paying ancestry.com $44.95 for the world sources or if it would make more sense to try and contact some public sources in Finland and possibly paying for that. In other words, where can I look and what can I conclude about what I found above? It's extremely difficult looking at old documents in another language written in cursive and I don't want to waste time searching completely wrong places. Today I spent hours just trying to figure out if Loimaa is the proper location and searching for baptism and birth records, which led to nothing.

[jani]

There's a Karl Edvard Aaltonen from Loimaa who was born in 1886 and got a passport on 31 OCT 1906 and travelled to Sault Ste. Marie on 7 NOV 1906.

[jani]

He was born in Loimaa on 27 DEC 1886 (date matches his grave stone). His father took the last name Aaltonen some time during the 1893-1902 communion book. Later records are not online yet.

[jani]

An in case you were wondering, I got the travel and passport info from the Institute of Migration website:
http://maine.utu.fi/index_e.php

The basic search feature on the Emigrant register is free to use, for full access they charge you 20 EUR.

The Loimaa church records up to ca. 1905 are online at FFHA (later years only for members). Older records up to ca. 1870 can be found on the National Archives website for free:
http://digi.narc.fi/digi/?lang=en_US

Easier site to navigate the NA records:
http://en.digihakemisto.appspot.com/

[badcrc]

jani wow thanks a lot. That's amazing, I wasn't expecting any details. Really cool.

[badcrc]

An in case you were wondering, I got the travel and passport info from the Institute of Migration website:
http://maine.utu.fi/index_e.php

The basic search feature on the Emigrant register is free to use, for full access they charge you 20 EUR.

The Loimaa church records up to ca. 1905 are online at FFHA (later years only for members). Older records up to ca. 1870 can be found on the National Archives website for free:
http://digi.narc.fi/digi/?lang=en_US

Easier site to navigate the NA records:
http://en.digihakemisto.appspot.com/

jani, how exactly did you figure out where to look in the national archives? You went to the "archives of the loimaa church"? Then to one of those archives?